2017-08-12: Revenge Is An Act of Passion
- Log: Revenge Is An Act of Passion
- Cast: Vorthuzahl, Cassidy Cain, Morgan Newkirk, Noah Hawthorne
- Where: A few miles outside of Hilton, Kingdom of Lacour
- Date: August 12, 2017
- Summary: Worlds collide when a Metal Demon decides to invade an encampment where Cassidy Cain and Morgan Newkirk happen to be catching up - and one that happens to be a creature of great interest to the former. But before Vorthuzahl can overwhelm the two, help appears in the very unexpected arrival of a mutual friend who was supposedly on his way to the Kislevi-Aveh war front...
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
Here on the edge of Forever, or what some Drifters like to call the desert, is a once and a lifetime opportunity. The nomads of this place do not always gather to barter on a regular schedule, but twice a year their swap meet takes place around one of the oldest watering holes on the Edge. A makeshift city of tents and hovels and even a stage at wooden, fold out carriage stage at the center of it all.
ARMS and relics and all sorts of wares trade by day, the shouting and bartering can be heard for miles around. At night, celebration, stories, and even weddings dominate the festivities, along with performances on a stage mostly use for auctioning larger wares. Despite the strife ripping through the land, it is a slice of life and normalcy that is refreshing, as if war and destruction and giant robots could not touch the raw humanity in the air, and the sense of comradery these men and women share with one another.
A select few outsiders are welcome, those who can talk fast and live hard and have the coin, or something to sell. As night begins to fall, a horn sounds for the battering to end, and drinking and gambling and laughter to begin.
Or at least, it should. The horn sounds again, and two blasts would mean a sandstorm is coming. Murmurs drift across the camp, for no clouds rest on the horizon.
The third blast sends a chill down many a spine.
It means danger is coming.
It means danger is here.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
If there is anything to be said about Cassidy Cain and the company she keeps, it is this: no matter what hour of the day, Trouble will always follow, and not necessarily one of their making. These instances are rare, but when stars align and when circumstances are right, these do exist, even when they are engaged with something as utterly innocuous as an opportunity to do something neither she nor her present companion have done in ages.
Movie night.
Morgan Newkirk had come calling at the Edgewater Hotel a few hours ago, now that he was in Lacour, to touch base with the blonde conwoman and being the creature of impulse that she is, had convinced the Beastman to rent a couple of horses so they could ride out to the edge of the nearby town of Forever, waving a flyer at his face. It is a more recent reel, done on film, meant to be spooled through projectors and shown on pale screens - the kind of brainless adventures that she, and surprisingly Morgan, enjoys; a commonality that they had discovered in the years of their acquaintanceship.
So here they are in Forever, watching a movie - the third part of a trilogy about a mild-mannered father with a checkered past, seeking vengeance on a specific bandit gang that had stolen his young daughter in an attempt to sell her off to a sex slave ring. The first installment had been so popular that it generated a second, where his former wife had been kidnapped, followed by this latest one, where the wife had been killed, and the daughter had been spirited away.
Again.
The festivities are in full swing when she and Morgan venture out of the makeshift canvas theatre, the arid air thick with the scent of cooking meat and filled with the sounds of revelry; guitar strings, cymbals and drums, from a nearby wedding reception. The blonde is busy wiping butter from her fingers, discarding her empty bag of popcorn as she strides with Morgan towards the center of the town.
"....you ken..." she begins. "I mean, this is the third movie, ay? The third time. At this point, a lass has got tae wonder if he's just a shite father."
Poor Niam Leeson.
Her hands tuck into the pockets of her jacket as she walks. "So what's new with you, Morgan? Thought you'd be meeting us when the tourney's in full swing, but it's over now. Sommat held you back in Ad-- "
The clarion call of a distant horn blasts three times from somewhere within the endless spray of stars above their heads and the evenshade of night. She pauses in her tracks, furrowing her brows.
"The bloody hell?"
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"I don't know," Morgan replies. "I mean he might be a shite father, but he can throw a mean throat punch still. But besides that...I mean really. Any self respecting gang would do some research and be like 'Oh hell this is not a guy to kidnap from. I mean it didn't work out for any of the other crime families that tried it.'" The beastman comments as he polishes off his beer. Butterscotch flavored. Its a guilty pleasure that he only saves for rare occasions. The damn bottles are hard to come by.
"Naw though, I was just working on getting my Gear fixed up after that one Demon turned it into a pretzel." A smirk on that. "Couldn't just buff out the body and hope for the best. Took a lot longer than I thought, but I met a pretty pirate. And a pretty gunwoman. And..." A pause. "...did you know Noah was trying to run the blockade without me? I was wounded when I found ou--"
The horn finally pierces the pleasent fog of beer and popcorn as he looks up towards where the noise is coming from.
A glance down at Cassidy.
"Either you've gotten a lot more talented since you've been here the whole time. Or this actually isn't your fault."
A pause.
"I'm givin it fifty-fifty shot of either."
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
The bloody Hell indeed.
At the edge of the camp, sand explodes upward from the creeping trail that had been speeding towards the guards who were engaged in a game of cards before the horns had sounded. A plume of dust streaks skyward, dust that turns red and glowing as it drifts to the ground as droplets of molten glass.
There in a burning haze, the beast that rises from the sand seems to have a face that is but a giant, whirring drillbit. Great clawed feet dig in, and it pulls itself upward, just far enough that it's passenger can land amidst the frantic guards that do their duty without the fear so many have shown before such a threat.
It may be hard to make out at first, but the sound of gunfire and the flash of a pair of blades signal the battle has joined.
Pellets pelt an already potmarked, armored hide, and Commander Vorthuzahl kicks burning sand into the man's face. His companion charges with a sword, and The Master of the Burning Blade, steps into the blow to catch it on his arm before rending his blade through both men in a single, decisive cut.
There is a scream from nearby. Calls to run. This is not mere raiding party. This is no mere squabble among traders. This is a monster of legend, one who speaks with a voice made of deep gravel and a haunting growl. One who speaks in a way most familiar.
"Flee. Flee. But leave that which you have stolen! Leave that which does not belong... TO CREATURES MEANT ONLY TO DIE!!"
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
The resulting haze of the ensuing fight at the very edge of Forever swirls up with disturbed dust and invades the star-spangled darkness, like blood sprayed into a fine mist. As screams start to filter throughout the camp and a rush of footsteps beat away from the disturbance, Cassidy flashes Morgan a look amidst the growing turmoil, fingers lifting upwards in a show of exaggerated surrender. "I've got an alibi this time!" she protests. "I was with you the entire night!" She pauses, giving him a squint. "It's nae much of one, granted, but-- "
The thunderous declaration booming from the fringes stills her words. Cursed with a long memory, the wretched syllables can't help but be familiar. In all of her years roaming around Filgaia - a decade or so - she knows of only one creature who says such things in that voice, and that way. Morgan would find the change in her expression immediately, shifting through her eyes and them only. It is a rare thing, a look that the Beastman has never seen on the woman's face before.
Because while the smile remains, those glade-green eyes darken to the point that the shattered shards of gold are swallowed up by these growing shadows. Her blood fills with the blackest of furies and the utterly euphoric heights of murderous intentions.
"Ay," she says, turning. "It's nae my fault.
The smile grows more unpleasant.
"Yet."
She looks over her shoulder at Morgan and winks. "Sorry, luv, I think you better get back tae Hilton without me. I'll catch up, I promise."
It's trouble, yes. But one that she doesn't intend to involve Morgan in, if she can help it. And with that, she takes off. Like a shot of gold-and-red lightning, her fleet figure rushes past the crowd attempting to get away from the growing chaos. She twists through gaps between bodies, hurdles over obstacles. Soon, the path clears before her, just in time to see the Metal Demon cut down two people in a single blow.
Opportunistic until the very end, her hand pulls out a small incendiary device, pulls the pin and throws it towards the skirmish. As the winking indicator light of the live grenade spins in the air towards the creature, her smile widens into a wide-eyed grin.
And she doesn't even warn him there's fire in the hole.
GS: Cassidy Cain has attacked Vorthuzahl with The Long Game!
GS: Cassidy Cain has completed her action.
GS: Vorthuzahl guards a hit from Cassidy Cain's The Long Game for 54 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"Look you've got up to plenty of trouble when you were with me entire nights!" Morgan shoots back before he pauses a moment. "...that didn't come out quite right but I'm goin' with it." Thats right. Charge ahead. Thats the foxes motto when it comes to things like this.
That sudden shift of expression, from teasing to bloodthirsty causes his words to fail him.
...which is a feat in and of itself.
So much so that when she leaves him in the dust he just stands there for a moment. Dumbfounded as people rush here and there in panic. The screen is trampled. The snacks are scattered. The foxman just stands in the midst of all this chaos as he tips his beer up to empty the last few glorious drops down his throat.
Though the colored glass he can see a familiar grenade explode.
Bringing the bottle down he just sighs.
"Here," A fleeing man is suddenly stopped at Morgan thrusts a bottle out at him. "Hold my beer."
Then he's running towards the explosion while the poor stunned man stares after him. Then looks down at the bottle. "HEY! YOU LONG EARED BASTARD THERE ISN'T EVEN ANYTHING IN THIS!!"
Just as the fire and debris clear from Cassidy's grenade there is a single shot that rings out just behind. Throatier, heavier, deeper than the Gunsmoke ARMs that the poor guards were using.
It crashes though the smoke, tearing a hole as it leave a tracer streak of blue-white energy in its wake.
At the other end of that tracer stands Morgan, his own ARM glowing bright. The larger bore shotgun weapon attached to the back of his gauntlet cycling in a new round as he smirks.
"Well, if it ain't Vorsomethingorother. Couldn't find any innocent archeological digs ta knock over today?"
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Vorthuzahl with Ace High!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
GS: Vorthuzahl guards a hit from Morgan Newkirk's Ace High for 54 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
A savage backhand sends another brave soul tumbling head over heels, and the Demon steps forward with steps that shake the sand. In his wake, the air glows, shimmering with heat that sends dust scurrying away from him in twisting spires, lighting up the sky with embers made of microscopic glass. It is not until a blur of motion catches his burning gaze that he stops to consider his rampage, a narrowing of his vision catching the visage of the creature so bold as to charge towards him.
Now, it all makes sense to the commander. For who could send his quest into uncharted lands but this one.
"YOU! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! VILE FLESHLING OF ACCENT MOST FOUL! TWISTED W-"
KA-CHOOOM!!!
The very air sucks inward before the explosion rocks his entire upper body, twisting his head to the side and staggering him a step. The stillness that follows is the kind of thing that might breed hope, as if a long topple might be the only motion he has left to give.
Then, he moves, stepping through the smoke as the rest of the accelerant finishes it's burn to reveal the rippling scare of the bomb across his upper body and face.
He does not notice the weapon leveled at him from beyond his immediate threat, does not see the incoming round as it powers through smoke and explodes against his face-plat, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
It reveals the fang-like protrusions that serve as teeth, and as the rest of the faceguard falls away the skeletal structure beneath somehow strikes and even more fearsome countenance. Again, he is staggered, rocked and forced to reset his step. Slowly he recovers, his teeth grinding together, head turning to the side.
He spits silver blood to the ground, and it boils in the sand.
"First I will kill your male, for I remember how protective you are of your harem. Then I will grind your bones to dust, and reclaim that which you have stolen!" This, he shouts to Cassie, before lifting his fist to send a repulsor blast racing towards her, intent on battering her aside to his sudden, blazing charge can send him dashing into Morgan's guard for a twisting whirl of a cut, sent slicing through the air with far more agility than a creature his size should ever possess.
GS: Vorthuzahl has attacked Cassidy Cain with Repulsor Blast!
GS: Vorthuzahl has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Searing Riposte!
GS: Vorthuzahl has completed his action.
GS: Morgan Newkirk critically Guards a hit from Vorthuzahl's Searing Riposte for 20 hit points!
GS: Vorthuzahl takes Cover! He gains 50 temporary hit points!
GS: Cassidy Cain takes a glancing hit from Vorthuzahl's Repulsor Blast for 50 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
She is what she is because she dares, and now that the opportunity is before her, Cassidy can't help herself. She has to reach out and take it, even if it may mean certain injury and death.
Metal Demons are dangerous; the situation in Adlehyde has now given her enough knowledge about them to know that charging so boldly into the fray was foolhardy at best, to tangle against a creature of legend that fears nothing and wants nothing but the utter annihilation of everything in his pursuit of whatever passes for glory among his ranks. Adrenaline surges white hot in her veins, flooding her synapses and enlivening every dormant sense. Everything around her feels charged and as her heart pulses wildly within her ribcage, every nerve sings with the battlefield's ballad, for she is never more alive than when she's about to die.
And die, she might, in attempting this.
Though she has no intention of doing so today. As Vorthuzahl turns towards her and screams something about her accent, her lips split into a wider grin when the rest of his words are choked back into his throat by the explosion of her grenade. She never did fight fair.
Smoke billows out from the point of explosion and it parts just enough to reveal that she has taken out a part of its monstrous helm and a chunk of his face. As silver flecks his lips and boils over the sand at what he's spilled, she turns to look at Morgan where he stands. "Morgan!" she exclaims, hooking her fingers into the engraved revolver resting at the small of her back. "You stubborn bloody bastard, I told you tae go without me! This inevitable rust bucket's mi-- !"
First I will kill your male, for I remember how protective you are of your harem--
What.
She recognizes the glow of his Repulsor Blast; he's tried to kill her with it before, and instinct takes over. She attempts to leap out of the way, the burning streak razing over her forearm and leaving it blistering, but functional still. Pain, she can handle, and as she rolls onto the sand, she rights herself up with one knee braced on the ground, her arm extended and the metal plate of her ARM gleaming under the light of the twin moons.
"Hey Morgan!" she calls out, leveling the gun at the exposed part of the Metal Demon's helm as he charges for her companion.
"I think he's trying tae tell you that somehow you've become my bitch! You going tae let him get away with that?! Told you that you should nae have stayed, now you get tae hear this cheeky bastard cast aspersions on your manhood! Maybe it's time tae tell him that you're the one with the harem! You did get married thirteen times."
Thirteen?
Wasn't it twelve the last time? WHAT DID SHE DO?
GS: Cassidy Cain has attacked Vorthuzahl with Say Hello To My Little Friend!
GS: Cassidy Cain has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Vorthuzahl critically Guards a hit from Cassidy Cain's Say Hello To My Little Friend for 21 hit points!
GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to Vorthuzahl!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
Vor's sword roars in. Impossible to dodge. Its speed inhumanly fast. Just the motion of the weapon is enough to send ripples though the smoke and dust as he barrels in at Morgan. For a split second the fox is eclipsed by the metalic engine of death as he swings down at the pitiful mortal that dared add himself to his dueling docket.
Metal strikes something harder than steel as a shield blossoms into existance around Morgan. The man just smirks up towards the massive Demon. Hand outstretched towards the sword as the Gauntlet on his arm hums with power. Blue-white energy expending a field that hardly seems to budge against the brutal blade.
Little details though show how difficult and how near a thing that was. The marks in the sand where the impact shoved the fox backward for one. The few beads of sweat that mark his taunt arm as he holds the energy in place.
There is a smirk though. He can't help it.
"First off, ya owe me ice cream after this movie and I aim to collect on that." He tosses back towards Cassidy. "Second off you know I'm not missin' out on a good scrap. Third off I was out of beer and the hotel was boring."
His hand suddenly clenches into a fist and the shield shatters into a dozen razored shards of energy that fly towards Vor, intent and shreading at least part of him.
Morgan jumps back, away from the crash of the sword as he frowns. "As fer you, I ain't part of her hare--"
Then his head whips around. "Thirteen?! Godsdammit Cass what did you do?!"
A pause.
"And I better have gotten some damn good gifts!"
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Vorthuzahl with Shieldbreaker!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Vorthuzahl guards a hit from Morgan Newkirk's Shieldbreaker for 127 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
In another world where metal and flesh could be fast friends, where polite conversation might bring about that awkward moment when a creature of legend uses the wrong word to describe friendship, they might all share a laugh. Heads tilted back. Chortling. Drinks all around. What a silly misunderstanding! Instead it becomes a rallying cry from Cassidy's lips to Morgan's ears, and Vorthuzahl's confusion barely has time to register as the gleam from her weapon catches his eye.
He is made of tougher stuff than the ore on this world, but it is more than simple metal that finds his face. Propelled as if by her soul-simmering rage, the round impacts an arm that sweeps up to intercept her attack, but it blasts through armor and substructure alike to slam into his face and force a misstep. It brings him to his knees, silverblood spilling forth from arm and mouth, teeth and jaw dislodging to the sound of an inhuman roar. Slowly it begins to grow back, for he is not a fetid pile of flesh that is meant to rot under the head of the sun or the annuls of time.
But he is not invulnerable, and Morgan Newkirk shows him what his ARM can do to living with that blast of shard-energy to the chest. It sends him staggering backwards and towards Cassie, his chestplate tumbling off, revealing damage to his substructure that appears to have been there before he engaged this camp. Fresh wounds are reopened, and as his chestplate begins to reform he lashes out with a series of powerful strikes meant to pin Cassidy in one place, rending through the space around her with blinding, burning energy, and just as it reaching a crescendo, he is a stunning blur.
His ruse revealed, he gives Morgan all the time the Beastman might need to recover before dashing back into his face, the burning energy of his blade flaring to life as he seeks to impale him, an almost magnetic force tugging at the Beastman as it seeks to not only end his life... but steal it and add to Vorthuzahl's own.
"Y...you...all of you. THIEVES! INSECTS! YOU WILL DIE SCREAMING!"
GS: Vorthuzahl has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Invigorating Ruin!
GS: Vorthuzahl has attacked Cassidy Cain with Relentless Assault!
GS: Vorthuzahl has completed his action.
GS: Cassidy Cain critically Guards a hit from Vorthuzahl's Relentless Assault for 30 hit points!
GS: Morgan Newkirk guards a hit from Vorthuzahl's Invigorating Ruin for 99 hit points!
GS: Vorthuzahl drains Morgan Newkirk! Vorthuzahl gains 98 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
He has been injured.
A more honorable soul would cease and demand another bout when the opponent has recovered from whatever injuries inflicted on his person, but there is enough dearth of moral fiber in the conwoman's soul that if nothing else, the fact that Vorthuzahl is in a weakened state only galvanizes her. Her blood rushes through her system, the white-hot burn of every piece of her keyed to the fight blasting ever sense with the potency of her tenacious, rabid killing intent. It is the same grip that seizes her whenever she remembers flashing blades and dark rooms, the sound of a distant and cold baritone and what she had seen in the mirror afterwards. It should make her recoil. It should make her feel sick.
But there is something about this particular encounter that stews her into the act of not giving a damn about those persistent shades, always lurking in her periphery and breathing down her neck no matter how far she falls from the sky. Morgan probably deserves an explanation, as to why she had told him to leave before engaging a creature too dangerous to attack all by her lonesome. But there's no time to give it, and typical Cassidy Cain, she just expects those around her to presume that she has a very good reason, and just listen to her.
The Metal Demon lunges at her, blade gleaming dangerously under the light of the moon. Cassidy twists to avoid most of it, feeling flesh rip open by her sleeve, but she's able to lift her revolver in time to clash against the blade, a shower of sparks spraying in the darkness on impact. Over and over, again and again, as Vorthuzahl attempts to breach her defenses, she manages, somehow, to keep up. Whoever she is, whatever she is, despite the fact that she persists on using her pistol to parry, her footwork hints at a lifetime of study in the art of the sword, nevermind that she doesn't seem to carry any blades on her person except for the one by her hip, no longer than a knife.
Green eyes shot with gold burn past the barrier gun and human limbs make, merely a glimpse of the true intensity of the hellfire he's managed to coax from deep within her. The expression on her face is unmistakeable.
She wants to kill him, and it is not an ordinary desire. It is easy and common to want a specific outcome; humans live their lives coveting the things they can't have. Hers is different. Hers goes beyond the wanting of every day. Whatever she feels, want barely encompasses the enormity of it - a destructive, all-consuming thing that threatens to obliterate her...and everything and everyone else in her path.
He moves away, at last, and he bleeds as he exhorts them to their screaming deaths. She follows quickly at his heels, determined to show him the folly of turning his back to her. She leaps across the distance, as fast as lightning.
"You keep running away just when things are about tae get interesting, luv!" she hollers, her scratched up revolver turning to aim towards the back of his head. Whatever he's doing to Morgan only heightens her already rabid need to see this creature into the earth. "Nae going tae lie, you're starting tae hurt my feelings!"
She fires a single bullet, right at the exposed side of his face and throat where flesh is just starting to regenerate.
"Dinnae I tell you the last time? I intend tae make you watch your heart beat between my fingers, so WHERE THE FOOK ARE YOU GOING?!"
GS: Cassidy Cain has attacked Vorthuzahl with Say Hello To My Little Friend!
GS: Cassidy Cain has completed her action.
GS: Vorthuzahl takes a solid hit from Cassidy Cain's Say Hello To My Little Friend for 84 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
Oh this is gonna hurt.
Morgan tries his best to bring his shields back around but either Vor's speed is too fast or that strange life-draining assault is too much for his shields as it scatters the energy to drive though to the heart of the matter.
The heart of the matter being Morgan.
Blood sprays, decorating the sands in crimson. The beastman is thrown backward, rolling though the dust before he can stop himself. His ARM glows fitfully as he forces himself back to his feet.
But there is a smirk on his face though as he spits blood and glances towards Cassidy.
"Ya know," He drawls as he curls his gauntleted hand into a fist. "I don't know how ya do it, but ya always seem ta get yer exes all riled up. That just a talent ya have there darlin?" The ARM of his suddenly flashes bright again as a double barreled firearm appears there.
He swings it up as it begins to bark even before he brings it to bare. The first few rounds from the weapon kick up dirt but the others he'll walk up Vor's heavily armored form.
Whats less obvious as he fires is the shields that brighten and swirl about him, powered by the recoil from his new weapon.
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Vorthuzahl with Blazer Gauntlet!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
GS: Vorthuzahl critically Guards a hit from Morgan Newkirk's Blazer Gauntlet for 22 hit points!
GS: Morgan Newkirk takes Cover! He gains 50 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
The great metal knight feeds, drawing energy from his foe and rejuvenating his armor, silverblood solidifying much in the way normal blood might to fill in a wound, but instead of a scab, his armor reforms. Perhaps he does not consider Cassidy a threat, or perhaps he had hoped to draw her into a closer engagement. Even in his success, there is a price, and the murderous intent she casts at him cuts almost as deep as the bullet that powers through one side of his face and out the other. A shocking sound splits the air, a cry of exhausted, crushing pain, words failing to form as his jaw drops from his face to melt away into the sand.
His sword digs into the ground as he is forced to one knee, and as the Beastman levels his weapon his hand raises to bring a meek shield to bear against the onslaught. The energy evaporates, and so does much of Vorthuzahl's arm, so much so that rending fire will whirl past the conwoman and at the very least give some method to the demon's madness: This close, everyone can be a casualty.
For the beastman, he sweeps his blade, intent on rending through his protections and powering into the flesh beneath, but the blow seems pained. Almost desperate.
It is a ruse.
The sky, lit by a new moon, suddenly goes dim. The air itself seems to flicker, the ground shake and tremble even as parts of the monster's armor drop from his superstructure to simmer in the sand. Lines of haunting red race towards his sword, energy piling up as Cassidy's taunts ruminate in his mind.
Along the edge of the encampment, horses fall over dead and the old and infirmed stumble as the pull of something rips vital life from their bones.
A child wails in pain.
Out of nowhere, a sandstorm powers through the tent city and temporary structures, and lightning crackles.
The Hour of Devastation has come.
Vorthuzahl's half destroyed face turns to cast both gleaming eyes at Cassidy Cain, answering her in the only way he knows how - with vengeance. He is a flicker, there one moment, between her and her ally, then a lunching juggernaut, blade leading the way to rend not only her flesh, but her soul.
Normally, he would say nothing while bringing the full force of his power upon an enemy, one he has met in fair and honorable combat, but the Beastman's words flicker a dim memory of a book he had read. And how he does so love human books.
"We. Never. Dated."
GS: Vorthuzahl has attacked Cassidy Cain with Hour of Devastation!
GS: Vorthuzahl has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Enfilading Strike!
GS: Vorthuzahl has completed his action.
GS: Cassidy Cain takes a solid hit from Vorthuzahl's Hour of Devastation for 336 hit points!
GS: Morgan Newkirk takes a solid hit from Vorthuzahl's Enfilading Strike for 151 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"Jus' a one night stand then?"
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
Forever.
If Noah Hawthorne weren't such a slave to the novelty and excitement of un-had experiences, one might expect that this nomadic get-together -- with its assignations of opportunity, bounty of luxuries from the breadth of Ignas, and likelihood for the sudden excitement of a spate of violence -- could hold his interest indefinitely. As it is, he's saturated his life in enough of the aforementioned indulgences that these things mandate an appearance, but only en route to other places. Consequently, he's forced to pack as much hedonism as possible into a modest window of time, and he has been busily doing that since the time of his arrival just before sundown, as the festivities began to gain momentum.
A few hours later he's finally emerging from a luminous tent that leaks all manner of suggestive thing, and that's only because one of his drives trumps all of the others: he is ravenously hungry. Not that he intends to go alone; he has company in the form of a petite, dark-haired baskar woman, though their stroll into the tangle of temporary structures is more companionable than it is intimate.
" -- couldn't rightly say," he's saying, that easy, satin drawl of his, inevitably a part of any rambling shaggy-dog story he tells. "For all we could tell, he seemed right as rain, save he was missing both legs, not a scratch on him or a wound to speak of, even where his knees used to be. Turns out the guy on the other side of that table was a shaman -- you'd have thought he'd notice, what with the pelts and general air of metaphysical superiority -- but he'd gone off half-cocked and accused the man of a swindle. And the man, who had the winning hand by a Badlands mile?" Noah's smile is bright as a dagger in the dark, leading up in his luxuriously amused way to the punchline, "Thought he'd called him a cheetah."
He and the woman with him stop dead as a line of horses crumple into the dirt. Somewhere, a child cries.
Two beats of silence, and then slowly, puzzled, staring down at the ruin of expensive horseflesh in front of him: "C'mon, I didn't think it was that bad..."
He glances down and sidelong at his companion to solicit support, but finds the space next to him empty but for shadows and swirling dust.
Still pleasantly fizzing internally from everything he drank and did in that tent, he stands a moment with his hands at his sides, the fingers of either twitching. Something's up. Does he want to know what that something is?
Well, the girl is gone...
"Ah, hell." Baritone in the dark, a low murmur. "Why the hell not."
The ARM he draws gleams dully as he maneuvers his way forward, boots silent in the sand.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
"My ex?" Cassidy shoots back, with such a look of intense incredulity on her pale mien that her feigned shock is very convincingly real. "Considering how quick you flew over here tae dance with him, I was thinking maybe he was one of yours!"
Overhead, moonlight dims and Death thickens the air. Cassidy doesn't know what is happening, but gooseflesh prickles her skin and she feels cold sweat drip down the shallow channel running down her back. Her heartbeat only rachets up faster and she tastes the end coming for her well before she sees Vorthuzahl himself as he blurs between them. There's a sick crunch, and fire wells up from her front. The force of the blow lifts her off her feet and launches her across the sands, blood spraying upwards in a crimson arc as her body bounces and rolls, kicking up dust.
Red stains her teeth, and for a moment, she simply lies there, black creeping into the hazy fringes of her vision. Shaking fingers lift to rest on her chest, coming away slick and wet. The urge to laugh bubbles up her decimated front; the pain is indescribable, the rush of it makes it all the more palpable. She can't sleep now.
I can't stop.
It might simply be pure will, that she manages to roll herself to her front and shakily press upwards. Her back to the rest, she retrieves a syringe from one of her hidden pockets, jamming the needle into her inner thigh and dispensing the clear fluid within into her veins. Gradually, her mind clears enough - at the very least, enough to anticipate just how Morgan would react.
And she tries to preempt this.
She pushes herself up, feeling the weight of the knife-blade on her hip and ignoring it. She knows what it means if she draws it. She has already had to once, during her stay in Lacour and she absolutely refuses to be pushed to those ends again. Aiming her revolver now that some distance has been reached, she draws a bead at the back of Vorthuzahl's ruined skull and fires.
"What the bloody hell..." she says, breathlessly, in all seriousness from behind her smoking gun. "Is a date?"
GS: Cassidy Cain has attacked Vorthuzahl with Sucker Shot!
GS: Cassidy Cain has completed her action.
GS: Vorthuzahl critically Guards a hit from Cassidy Cain's Sucker Shot for 22 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
Sometimes Morgan is mysterious and unfathomable. Sometimes he is random and unknowable. He is a fox after all, and they are supposed to be dangerously cunning.
Sometimes though, they are sadly...predictable. This would be one of those times. Cassidy knows him pretty well after all.
His own blood sprays as Vor's sword rips into him, his shields shreadding under the blow as the Fox holds his ground against the onrushing engine of destruction.
But then he sees Cassidy. His eyes widen as he sucks in breath watching her catapulted off her feet. Red sprays in the moonlight as the fox breathes a sigh of relief to note her still moving.
Then he's moving, dashing across the space as odd tattoos etch their way up one hand. The fur on the tips of his ears and tail turning white. It isn't normally white.
Bullets spray from his gun as he attempts to grab Vor's attention, placing himself between Cassidy and the monster even as the con-woman fires.
Heart hammering in his chest, blood singing in his ears. He hasn't been pushed in a fight this hard since his arena days. He's missed it. That hairs-breath between life and death where all balances on a single hand of cards. Pain sharpens his focus as his normally sandy fur begins to creep towards white. The pain is acute, he knows they don't have much time left.
Still he manages a bloody smirk at her question.
"Its when ya take someone out ta dinner a time or two before ya drag em back ta the hotel and screw till ya can't stand upright."
Morgan. Always helpful.
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Vorthuzahl with Ace High!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
GS: Vorthuzahl critically Guards a hit from Morgan Newkirk's Ace High for 18 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
"Dinnae...get it..." Cassidy utters, unable to keep the strain from her voice somewhere behind Morgan. "...why would...you want tae...fatten up the other person before you see them naked?"
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
Blood hits the sand, and Vorthuzahl is pleased. He does not notice another coming to join the fray, intent on both of his formidable foes as he turns the corner and tastes their blood. He could not say, however, that he tasted their fear. It drives him. Infuriates him. Enrages him. He wants more from the fleshling, and as they banters, as their situation does little to crush their spirits in the way he needs, he roars and whirls around to face them both, his blade moving in a swirling arc to pick the bulk of their fire from the air, while the rest rends into armor, and puts a hole in his chest.
Cassidy wanted to hold his heart. She will at least see it.
There in his chest is something angular and glowing, burning like a miniature sun set on the edge of a nova. It pulses power throughout him, and the brief glimpse is eclipsed by the mercurial regeneration that bolsters his defenses as he once again wades in.
"ENOUGH! You will hand over the Dragon Stone, or when I am done slaughtering you, I will destroy each and every one of these pitiful beings. I will hunt them to the edge of the desert, and turn this place to blasted glass! Then, perhaps I will find your other companion, the one with the freezing gun, the one who tasted my blade before and FINISH WHAT I STARTED!"
He launches into his attack then, whirling at Morgan first with an unrelenting series of rapid fire cuts, finally breaking the momentum to lash out towards Cassidy, to try and finish her off before they go any further into describing their mating rituals.
Disgusting.
GS: Vorthuzahl has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Relentless Assault!
GS: Vorthuzahl has attacked Cassidy Cain with Insidious Cut!
GS: Vorthuzahl has completed his action.
GS: Cassidy Cain has activated a Force Action! 100 Temporary HP gained! All statuses cleared!
DC: MISS! Cassidy Cain completely evades Insidious Cut from Vorthuzahl!
GS: Morgan Newkirk critically Guards a hit from Vorthuzahl's Relentless Assault for 29 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
Why would you want to fatten up the other person before you see them naked?
"Well, Cassie," comes that familiar drawl from a pocket of shadows. It's swiftly followed by something that glints and flickers with strobing light, a glossy missile that copters end over end, trailing a rooster tail of garnet liquid: a nearly-full wine bottle, powerfully whipped through the air with uncanny precision for the back of the head of whatever the hell that is. It connects in a shower of glass and alcohol, an inescapable announcement of Noah's arrival rather than the maybe-distraction it could have been had he missed, and it crashed into the rickety stands beyond.
A single fluid gesture draws one of the ARMs he keeps belted at his sides and directs it out at arms' length, body turned sideways to the object of his focus, a minimized target that advances into the puddle of moon and torchlight in this improvised, impromptu arena. "You want to get a real bonfire going, you're going to need kindling to feed the fire."
A single glittering eye flicks backward over his shoulder toward the mess of her on the ground. He can't make out what kind of shape she's in, but he can hear in her voice that it isn't good, and whatever he might think or feel about that, he doesn't share it with anybody. There's nothing but cheer in his own as he lifts his chin: "Newkirk, good to see you! I see you're still a harbinger of widespread destruction. Can't take you anywhere, can she?"
Emerald hues, charred black in the dark, glint in their sweep back to the -- seriously, what the hell is that?
"And you, pal? I hope you saved some for me." Something mechanical clicks softly, a whispered promise of impending violence uttered by the ARM raised aloft. "No time for a date, though. Let's see if that stamina holds."
GS: Noah Hawthorne has attacked Vorthuzahl with Pot Shot!
GS: Noah Hawthorne has completed his action.
GS: Vorthuzahl takes a solid hit from Noah Hawthorne's Pot Shot for 97 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
The Metal Demon roars angrily somewhere in front of them. It isn't to say that she doesn't feel fear - the fact that she could die here is very real and she is not so devoid of survival instincts that she doesn't recognize it and how it makes her heart race, and makes her front bleed all the more. But his frustration is intoxicating to her, and is that surprising? She makes a living making the lives of the people around her more difficult than they initially would. In her position, who wouldn't find that pleasing? Her mouth cracks in a sharp, mad grin, brilliant and searing in the darkness.
It's not a bad day to die, but it's definitely a good day to live.
For she sees it - the glowing furnace at the center of Vorthuzahl's chest. It might as well be a beacon, a target...a jewel ripe for the plucking.
ENOUGH!! You will hand over the Dragon Stone--
It is the first time she's heard of it; something to file away for later, there are too many drives inside her warring for attention and one that she holds primacy above all else - the need to take. It isn't as if she doesn't hear the very real threat levied towards Vorthuzahl's unfinished business, it registers loud and clear, like a fog horn blaring from across the sea, but she moves as if she doesn't. She knows what that is meant to do, and in spite of herself, in spite of what it means, she is too conditioned to rise up to the offered provocation.
What she does rise up to, however, is the fact that Morgan has interposed himself between her bloodied figure and the Metal Demon...and that another familiar soul has melted from the shadows to join them.
Another who intends to bolster the wall that Morgan already provides.
And she can't. She can't.
You want to get a real bonfire going, you're going to need kindling to feed the fire, says Noah Hawthorne, who proceeds to accuse Morgan that all of this is his fault.
"Ay," she breathes. Despite her condition, she flashes that grin at the newcomer. "S'pose you're more right than you ken."
She suddenly launches herself off her feet, the drug taking effect, dulling enough of the pain while leaving enough to keep her sharp and alert. She pulls ahead, away from both men, to cut the distance in half, to try and keep the bulk of the Metal Demon's attention on her. And it works, for the Metal Demon turns towards her and charges after dealing his next series of blows to Morgan.
His blade swings, and Cassidy suddenly drops, skidding under the silver arc the blade leaves behind and kicking up a cloud of dust. She springs forward after a twist, as if leapfrogging away and trying to reclaim as much distance as she can, but not without leaving something behind, obscured by swirling particles, the telltale wink of a red indicator light nearly smothered by Vorthuzahl's miss.
The grenade explodes.
"Sorry luv," she tells the Metal Demon. "Cannae hear you from past all the racket, but I think Noah finds you pretty enough tae dance with, too. What a belle of the ball you turned out tae be, I'm almost jealous!"
GS: Cassidy Cain has attacked Vorthuzahl with The Long Game!
GS: Cassidy Cain has completed her action.
GS: Vorthuzahl guards a hit from Cassidy Cain's The Long Game for 52 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"You're late Hawthorne! Here I thought ya would miss this dance all together. Ya must be gettin' old if yer tired this early." Morgan calls back over the roar of the flames even as Vor's sword comes arcing in but this time the Fox is ready. That first blow comes in and the Drifter does the near impossible. His gauntlet snaps up and metal fingers clench around the Demon's arm. Holding it in place with a strength that far exceeds what someone from around these parts would have. Muscles bunch in his arm and shoulder as he holds that blade there, straining against the impossible.
The fur on his ears and tail go snow white as he struggles against the unforgiving Demon. "Tha' hell is a Dragon Stone?" He asks, voice tight with effort.
Seconds pass but eventually the Fox has to give ground, he releases his grip to dive to the side. Delaying the strikes just enough to give Cassidy the opening she needs to dart away.
As Vor turns to focus on Cassidy the Guntoating Fox shows him why its a very bad idea to turn your back on a scoundrel. Bright light channeled from his ARM forms into a long hybrid of a pistol and rifle. Elegant in scope, colored white and gold, the weapon cracks out round after round as the ARMs power refills the quickly expended magizane.
"Not jealous enough ta keep us from settin' ya on fire of course." Morgan adds helpfully as he continues to fire, gun blasts lighting up a face with a wild grin on it. Eyes wide and focused as he fills the air with the smell of cordite and ejected casings.
GS: Morgan Newkirk has activated a Force Action!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Vorthuzahl with Shieldbreaker!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
GS: Vorthuzahl takes a solid hit from Morgan Newkirk's Shieldbreaker for 103 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzah has posed.
The bottle crashes against the side of his head, and Vorthuzahl stumbles sidelong. It is a shimmering blight of energy that surrounds him, a palpable manifestation of his undying rage, a field that seems to barely hold the creature together. It staggers again as that bottle's contents catches fire on his metal skin, melting armor and distracting the demon from the glowing, pulsing thing that Cassidy left behind.
Her continued banter draws a spit of his silverblood sidelong as the fire on him dies away to smoke, only to barely bring his arm up in time to feel the sudden, explosive force of her left behind gift. It rents through that hand, utterly destroying it, and sends shrapnel through the body he had meant to protect with that hand and arm, and he must dig his sword into the ground to keep from toppling over.
There is another cry, pain searing up his frame as it shakes under the assault from Morgan, each and every rout piercing his hide and searing through to sail past Cassidy, bringing with it some of his molten blood and and dropping the Metal Demon to his knees.
Here on the edge of destruction, he growls and draws his sword from the ground, eyes alight as he shifts those glowing embers to Noah. "Even if I don't have the stamina.. I can take some of yours!"
There is an explosion of motion, and his silver blood paints the ground as he arcs across the battlefield with sweeping motions of his blade, and even a close brush of it will bring a draining, tugging sensation that seems to leech at the very soul. Some here have felt it before, but somehow he has summoned the strength to unleash it on them all, ending his cleaving run in front of Noah with an overhand chop that firmly sets his attention on the newcomer who so badly wants a piece of him.
GS: Vorthuzahl has activated a Force Action!
GS: Vorthuzahl has attacked Cassidy Cain with Invigorating Ruin!
GS: Vorthuzahl has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Invigorating Ruin!
GS: Vorthuzahl has attacked Noah Hawthorne with Invigorating Ruin!
GS: Vorthuzahl has completed his action.
GS: Cassidy Cain takes a glancing hit from Vorthuzahl's Invigorating Ruin for 78 hit points!
GS: Vorthuzahl drains Cassidy Cain! Vorthuzahl gains 78 temporary hit points!
GS: Morgan Newkirk guards a hit from Vorthuzahl's Invigorating Ruin for 100 hit points!
GS: Vorthuzahl drains Morgan Newkirk! Vorthuzahl gains 139 temporary hit points!
GS: Noah Hawthorne takes a glancing hit from Vorthuzahl's Invigorating Ruin for 79 hit points!
GS: Vorthuzahl drains Noah Hawthorne! Vorthuzahl gains 167 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
"Oh, yeah," Noah tosses out casually, as Cassidy ups to her feet and races past, intact enough to carry on fighting and able to quip about dancing. "I'm real into..." Free hand lifted and splayed, he circles it once around his general face area, referring to the alien mien of the metal titan in front of him. "...whatever all that's about."
In the swift exchanges that follow there's not much time for further banter, but his lopsided smirk is tight when Morgan accuses him of getting old. "Sometimes I think so."
The amount of damage the mystery figure sustains is outrageous for something that can push through that kind of pain, and he understands why as it turns and bears down on him, spatters of liquid silver scattering across the sand like expelled stars: metal demon.
"Aw, sh--"
He doesn't get the word out before the massive, half-ruined silhouette is virtually on top of him. It moves fast for something that size. So does Noah, usually, but a couple of hours of indolence and hedonism have a price: he's too slow. He leans back, sweeps the out-pointed ARM in front of him back and down, the weighty shine of it shifting and lengthing sharp with a SHLINK sound into a full blade, but it's too late for him to get wholly out of the way of that charge or interpose his transformed weapon. His limber backward lean is only enough to spare him a full and fatal cleaving, blade edge still tracing a fine stroke down the front of him. It's not the pain that worries him -- it's the sensation that follows. Like the thing just stole some of what he is.
He's prickly about that, as it turns out.
The blur that follows is difficult to trace in the dark for organic eyes, though the thing in his personal space probably has no difficulty. As Noah draws his second ARM he brings the first around, grip -- hilt, now? -- pivoted around, blade run backward along the line of his forearm, blocking any follow-up attack. The second rises, trigger pulled, round discharged in with a sharp CRACK, the muzzle flare a distraction from the blocking blade's swift angling and plunge. Unseen manipulations release a milk-like fluid from the cannisters mounted along the outside, drooling into minute channels in the blade itself.
There's no way he picked that up coasting around Filgaia. It's not drifter fare, it's a kata. There are no follow-up quips.
GS: Noah Hawthorne has attacked Vorthuzahl with Mandatory Fun!
GS: Noah Hawthorne has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
There had been no time to warn Noah about the nature of the thing they were facing. If Cassidy had it her way, she would be doing this alone - when it comes to the brutal, bloody business of killing, she always wants to do it alone. The methods she uses are often too telling, and in these deserted wastes, people come from all over; from the seas, from the sands, from the skies....from the moons, themselves. She simply can't risk discovery, can't fathom anyone deciphering those forbidden pieces of her tumultuous life.
But knowing Morgan as well as she does, she should have expected it to be a futile effort, and with Noah here now, she can expect the same, for she and him are alike on some very fundamental levels: simply put, if he didn't want to be here, he wouldn't be here.
In a blink of an eye, Vorthuzahl becomes difficult to see. He is moving too fast for that, proving that the legends regarding these creatures and their facility for taking lives have not been exaggerated in the least. So she stops trying to look; instinct boils over and when she senses the blade whip towards her, she moves to dodge it. She's too injured, and even when she has taken something to prevent her mind from dwelling on how debilitated she is, blood never lies and the body always knows. She is slower than usual, and when that sword adopts its deadly cleave, she manages to avoid the worst of it. More of her blood spatters into the sands.
But she doesn't cry out. For someone so slender, she can withstand an inhuman amount of punishment. She half-dances, half-stumbles back, feeling pieces of herself leave her in an ephemeral streak, tinged with a hint of gold and absorbed by the creature that took it from her. Crimson twines in thin rivers down the exposed pallor of her arm.
There is a reason why she favors wearing red.
Emerald eyes narrow dangerously. "Dinnae you ken by now?" she says between clenched teeth. "I dinnae take too kindly tae those who try tae take from me."
He ends his deadly run with Noah and her heart lurches on her throat; what he decides to use against the Metal Demon should be familiar, but isn't - yet another nugget of his overall mystery dropped by his circumstances. As the relic hunter engages the bleeding silver beast, she spins the chamber of her revolver out - the one the man himself had given her - expended, augmented shell casings dropping spent on the sand, to be forgotten by the morrow. She claps another clip into it, tossing it away.
Her vision remains faded on the edges, but she lifts her arm to aim. Bleeding profusely on her feet, her hold is surprisingly, impossibly steady.
"I'm getting real tired of you turning away from me when I'm the one that wants your heart in my hand," she whispers. "Vorthuzahl, was it?"
She cocks back the hammer. "The name's Cassidy Cain." Her lips twist upwards in the devil's own grin. "And I'm your..."
She pulls the trigger. She doesn't finish the thought.
Probably because she's too hurt to remember which fruit it was at the end of that famous phrase.
GS: Cassidy Cain has activated a Force Action!
GS: Cassidy Cain has attacked Vorthuzahl with Sucker Shot!
GS: Cassidy Cain has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Vorthuzahl guards a hit from Cassidy Cain's Sucker Shot for 99 hit points!
GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to Vorthuzahl!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
He really hates this Demon.
The rush scatters red into his white fur. The tattoos set in his skin, visible on the back of his bare hand, etch themselves brighter. As if he's concentrating less on keeping them dim and more on keeping his blood on the inside where it belongs. Which he kinda is.
There is too much of it on the sands and on his coat now for his liking. "I'm pretty sure he don't give a damn, darlin. He don't seem the type to care if he plays dirty." A wicked grin crosses his face. "Which means we should play in kind."
Morgan whistles even as Vor turns for his next attack. A sandy colored blur detatches from the darkness as a greater lynx suddenly bounds up behind Vor. Long fangs and claws ripping into the back of the Demon's leg more as a distraction than anything else.
Then Morgan shoots. The white-silver-gold pistol ratcheting in a new magazine with twirling flourish as he fires. Aiming at the weak points. The rounds trailing tracer lines of power as the foxes ARM hightens its power.
Even as Cat bounds away Morgan's rounds scream home. The fox keeping his focus steady, even as he notes the odd kata from Morgan and the wealth of crimson that Cassidy is leaving on the sands.
"Huckleberry, darlin." He calls out as he advances. Still shooting, making himself a target. "Though it would be more appropriate if'n ya were drunk and had two guns."
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Vorthuzahl with Shieldbreaker!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
GS: Vorthuzahl takes a solid hit from Morgan Newkirk's Shieldbreaker for 120 hit points!
GS: Vorthuzahl has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
"I feel drunk," Cassidy interjects in protest. "And I have three guns."
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"Well," Morgan drawls. "Ya lost enough blood at this point ya prolly are..."
<Pose Tracker> Vorthuzahl has posed.
There is a moment there, standing before The Newcomer, that Vorthuzahl's pain ebbs, and not simply because he's reforming before the man's eyes. It's the subtle things, the way he moves, the way his weapons twist with the inclination of his body, and the shot that rends through him follows up with a guarding posture that forces a tilt of his malformed head. He almost does not move, even as the venomous compound seeps in, transfixed by the man's motion, his style, the first thing akin to a civilized form of communication he's had all day.
He does not have long to ponder it. His back shatters with the shot from Cassidy, silverblood spraying forward and over Noah, hot and vile but not enough to burn skin. There is a stagger. A waver. Is this it? Did they finally take the fight from the creature? It's reformed hand curls into a fist, and he summons the will to speak now that he once again has a jaw.
Before it can do so, Morgan unleashes hell, a creature assaults it in a distracting lunge, and then rapid fire powers into the weak parts in it's armor. The beast staggers, its sword drops, and it falls to its knees.
And father still. And so might they, if they are not quick. The sand begins to pile inward, swallowing the metal demon up as something billows under the surface, rummaging, ruining , destroying the underground well that keeps the namesake of this place alive.
Some things simply don't last Forever.
A plum of sand will make it hard to see what happened to the demon, and much of the camp is devoured by the sinkhole caused by the Drill-Faced steed that had come to it's master's aide. But there, amid the simmering blight left in the creature's wake is his sword. Or... is it? The metal that was burning so bright melts away, leaving behind the pommel of a very normal, steel sword, the crossguard and the lower part of the blade intact. An ancient trophy, it seems, the demon had piled his own metal upon to make a weapon worthy of his fury.
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
It doesn't move.
He pierces it with the wicked blade of the transforming ARM in his hand, injects it in so doing with a toxin he can't possibly be sure will work on the physiology of a Metal Demon, and it stands there, immovable, head tilted, doing nothing.
That alien response to what can only be excruciating pain is more unnerving than any massive charge or deadly cleave. Still on its feet with so much of itself missing, leaking quicksilver like a font, that motionlessness gives it an air of something almost like invincibility.
Not so. Both hands whipped back and then uplifted, arms crossed and blades slant back in readiness for whatever comes, Noah finds that the whatever never does come: the drifters behind it force it to its knees, finishing something that started well before Noah arrived.
The earth buckles beneath it...and begins to shift and slide, sand yielding beneath Noah's boots. The desert softens sickeningly. Ominously.
The ARMs reconfigure and are sheathed so quickly that even Noah barely remembers doing it. All of his focus now is on Morgan and Cassidy, and getting clear of the tragedy about to follow.
On Cassidy specifically.
He lingers only just long enough to pick up the gleaming hilt of that blade and shove it into his belt. Even in crisis, he suspects the thief might appreciate a souvenir...and if not she, then doubtless Morgan could put it to good and vengeful use.
Then it's time to go. Beyond time to go. Sand funnels into the rent the Demon makes in the ground, down into the catacombs that web through hidden aquifers to supply these arid lands with this tiny pocket of respite -- soon to be nothing more than a memory. And once the gleam of metal disappears that process does not stop, it accelerates.
It's not in Noah's nature to view women as damsels in distress who need his intervention to survive trouble. Years of roaming Filgaia have given him a healthy appreciation for how rarely that's the case. He's no white knight. So when he closes in on Cassidy and leans down to hoist her up off of her feet, it's because of the sheer amount of blood she's leaving behind, and the swiftness with which the ground is dissolving underneath them. If there were time and he were asked, he might say that snatching her up to carry her is the most dangerous thing he's done tonight, but needs must.
"Newkirk I sure as hell hope you don't need a piggy-back out of this sh--!" A yurt platform splinters behind him, canvas loudly tearing, wood boards snapping in a cacophony.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
In the end, it is Morgan who delivers the blow that ends the dance. What fills her then is something difficult to parse, a comingling of warring emotions and so chaotic that she finds it difficult to determine which is the most paramount - anger, relief, disappointment that she hadn't been the one. As the Metal Demon starts to sink into the sands, seemingly at the cusp of its own demise, her fingers twitch on her side, and tightens into a fist.
"Nae," Cassidy says, something dark and sick creeping into her tone, black fury stitching into that one single word as she lurches forward. "This is nae over, you-- !"
He leaves something gleaming and almost liquid in the shifting landscape underneath them and in the spreading haze of her failing vision, she uses it as an anchor - a point of reference to mark the distance between herself and her quarry. The dust of Filgaia hides many secrets and if nothing else, she intends to rid it of this one for good. Her heart pulses painfully against her ribcage as she moves, gun in a blood-slickened grip in her hand. This is it, her chance. She has to, needs to take it.
But she is addled, so focused on ensuring that the corpse doesn't escape that she isn't aware of just how her entire world is sinking. She has chosen, in her stubbornness, to interpret it as the onset of delirium related to her blood loss.
So it is too late when she realizes that the dark shape angling towards her is Noah Hawthorne, not Vorthuzahl the Metal Demon, the bright argent beacon of the sword the creature left behind gleaming on his belt as he picks her up off the ground. "Nae, nae! He's nae dead yet!" There's a hand, the hint of a struggle, but she is significantly weakened and the man has bulk and energy to spare. "I have tae...I need tae...Noah!"
It isn't just the name, but how she says it. The undercurrents of desperation seep in, unable to keep it in check.
It is the final protest; they take off and the sound she makes, choked into the back of her throat, is laden with frustration. Basketed in a secure grip and the world bleeding into a dark, swirling blur, Time passes her by, as slow as molasses as the relic hunter sprints with her in tow. And all she can do is hang on.
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
The elegant long pistol in his right hand leads smoke from a barrel made red-hot by the rate of fire. He doesn't stop until the creature is obscured by the explosion of sand. This is something that he can give no quarter to, because he expects no quarter from it. Finally the pistol ceases its deadly song and the fox dissipates it back into the odd blue energy it came from.
"He'll be back, Cass." He tosses towards the conwoman. "Things like him always come back. You'll have your chance, darlin." The foxes words hold a dark assurance as he stands, even as the sand around him begins to shift and flow.
"Ah hell. The whole place is comin' down!" He cries as he too turns to follow Noah, relief flooding the man's chest as he notes the fact that he in fact took the most dangerous job.
Picking up a delirious Cassidy Cain.
The Fox himself isn't quite sure he should in his condition. More of his blood is on the outside than in. He can feel torn muscles and holes in his flesh where there shouldn't be but he ignores it. Pushing on past the pain as he flees the sinkhole that was once an Oasis.
Cat, the lynx, lopes behind. Picking up a child by the shirt as he bounds after the group to carry him to saftey. Or he's just saving the kid to eat later. I mean he is a cat and all.
"Like you could actually carry me on a good day, Hawthorne! Just save yer breath for runnin! And try to make sure she doesn't stab ya!"
A pause.
"She does that sometimes. Its kinda adoreable."